Why Ad Blockers Are Ultimately Harmful

Depends on perspective, right? Not really, it’s bloody simple. Ad blockers are harmful because they

steal potential revenue from publishers.

steal potential sales from advertisers

ultimately put both small publishers and small advertisers out of business, leaving the person ad-blocking with less quality content choices.

Traditional publishers are already in danger, unless they adapt. Now, there are a lot of good bloggers I’ve come across who are on the verge of quitting. That means we all get cheated out of good content in the long run.

Consider this: a guy I knew, who worked for a large book publisher, told me back in the mid 1990s that many of the best books ever written will never get published because there’s no financial benefit for publishers. He spent his own hard-earned money to publish one book per year – a book his employer turned down but allowed him to publish.

Do we want good online content to go unpublished as well? Why should you get free content without expectation of giving something back in return, if just your eyeballs for, say, a banner ad?

So think twice before you ad block, lest we be left with blog spam and ancient scraped content.

In the meantime, bloggers should consider the advice of Brian Clark (Copyblogger), in his new free report, Teaching Sells (MP3 and PDF forms). I’ve listened to the MP3 three times today, while I blog. It’s worth every minute – especially if you’re fearful that readers will ultimately all block out the ads on your site, and that your freelance income will continue to ebb and flow. You can have a career online but it shouldn’t wholly reliant on a few cents per ad click.